Opinion

Sample lecture from our Shaping Policy with Evidence short course

Published on 29 April 2021

James Georgalakis

Director of Evidence and Impact

This week, applications opened for our popular online course for professionals: Shaping Policy with Evidence 

The course is designed for practitioners and researchers seeking to build their skills and knowledge to more effectively shape policy with evidence for positive social change.  

Participants learn though a combination of lectures, peer learning webinars, group work, and presentations. Through the course, participants develop a framework for strengthening evidence-informed policy and practice focused around specific aspects of evidence literacy and adaptive policy engagement.  

If you’ve never taken an online short course before, it can be hard to imagine what it might be like. This video provides a flavour of what you can expect. It is the very first lecture that participants receive on the Shaping Policy with Evidence course. In it, I explain 

  • what we mean by evidence
  • the relationship between evidence and policy 
  • theories of change, and 
  • pathways to impact.   

Watch the sample lecture

“Rich, informative and powerful”

After completing the course, participants are equipped with the skill to: 

  • Re-evaluate your organisation’s or programme’s use of evidence and theories of change. 
  • Adapt to fast-changing policy demands and deploy new tools for understanding how change happens in a particular context. 
  • Systematically identify and appraise policy relevant evidence. 
  • Frame research for policy and practice and develop compelling evidence informed policy offers. 

 Ali Al-Agri is a Social Policy Specialist at UNICEF. In March 2021, Ali joined over 40 participants from 21 countries on the course. He said: “Overall, the entire course was amazing, rich, informative and powerful – and delivered in a smooth and friendly way. I found the ‘power analysis’ and ‘learning and engagement’ components of the course particularly interesting and the case study was a good opportunity to test all the learnings as we went.”  

 To find out more about the course and join our next international cohort of policy analysts, researchers, policy advocates and research communicators, visit www.ids.ac.uk/shaping-policy   

Disclaimer
The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IDS.

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